Katarzyna Petru
YouTube Premium subscription was supposed to guarantee peace from ads. Meanwhile, some users have started reporting that despite an active payment, ads still appear while playing music. The problem mainly concerns smart speakers and devices from the Google Home and Nest series.
Ads despite active subscription
According to user reports, ads appear both before tracks and during the playback of playlists on YouTube Music. This is particularly frustrating for those who purchased a Premium plan specifically to avoid them. Interestingly, the app works correctly on smartphones. The problem seems to primarily affect Google Home and Google Nest devices. Users also report other issues: long pauses between tracks, random music selection, problems starting playback.
Google responds, but there’s still no solution
The issue has reached the official Google Nest community forum. Company representatives have acknowledged that they are aware of the problem and have begun analysing errors related to YouTube Music playback on smart devices. Although the message doesn’t explicitly mention ads, everything suggests that it could be about a bug in recognising an active Premium subscription. In such a case, the system treats the user as someone without a subscription and displays ads.
YouTube suggests basic diagnostic steps: check if the device is logged into the correct account, log out and log back in, check the linked account settings in the Google Home app. If the problem only concerns the speakers and not the mobile app, it is most likely an issue on Google’s service side, not the user’s.
Ads on YouTube Music with an active Premium subscription are a serious annoyance. Especially when they relate to equipment produced by the same company. Google states that it is working on a solution, but a specific date for the fix has not yet been provided. If the situation drags on, some users may start looking for alternatives.
source: hdtvpolska.com
